A conventional form of computer network comprises: a base computer; one or more (and often many) user computers; and a bidirectional communications link between the base computer and the user computer(s). In such a conventional network, the communications links are typically provided by wire connections, such as co-axial cable or unshielded twisted pairs.
The present invention was originally conceived in connection with the networking of computers in a classroom, although it does have many other applications. In such an application, perhaps ten, twenty or thirty students would each have a user computer connected to a base computer, for example a file server. A considerable amount of cabling would therefore be required, at significant cost. Also, in order to be rugged, a large proportion of the wiring would need to be permanently installed, for example in trunking or with cable clips, and this means that the siting of user computers in the classroom is not as flexible as would be desired. In order to deal with this problem, the present invention adopts a wireless approach to the networking of computers, but that in itself presents other problems.